The Department of English has introduced a new system of Internal Assessment for its MA Programme, called IA Group Meetings. Each student is a part of a small group (of approximately 17 students), which meets a designated faculty member once a week in the afternoon of a working day, from around 1.30-2.30 pm. Each IA group meets the same allotted teacher for 1 semester, and then another teacher in the next semester. Potentially, therefore, each student works closely with 4 faculty members in consecutive IA Groups in the course of the MA Programme.
Each IA group meets at least 9 times during 1 semester. The meetings of each group are arranged around a set of at least 4 readings chosen by the IA teacher of the group, usually clustered around a theme or movement or critical idea, or a combination of these. The groups discuss these readings, led by the teacher, and in the course of the semester students are required to make individual presentations on readings, besides participating in the discussions at every meeting. Towards the end of the semester, each student is required to submit a term paper of approximately 2,500 words, on a non-negotiable date announced when the semester begins. The term paper is a research paper with a bibliography in MLA style, on a topic proposed by the student and vetted by the teacher after discussion. The student is ideally expected to spend the better part of the semester first planning, and then working on, this term paper, which carries the bulk of the marks the IA carries in the final assessments.
The term paper deadline (both hard copy and email submissions) for semesters 1 and 3 is Friday, November 11, 2011 by 4 pm. Hard copies must be submitted to the dept office on your own campus.
Attendance, participation, individual class presentation and the term paper are all mandatory requirements of the Internal Assessment in the MA programme and each carry allotted marks in the final evaluations. Plagiarism if detected in the term paper is severely penalised, and can result in the cancellation of a student’s IA marks altogether if there is sufficient proof of appropriations of words and ideas are not adequately cited.
The idea of the Internal Assessment system is not to offer focused help and guidance on syllabus texts, a responsibility that has always been carried out by the college department in which the student is enrolled, but to provide additional ways of approaching and thinking critically about the syllabus in a more comprehensive way, using readings that offer these tools, and also to give the student a chance to write a term paper on a chosen topic after doing independent research on it through the semester. These we believe provide the MA student with specific skills of writing, argument and analysis, additional to the ones they acquire in attending lectures, studying texts and appearing for examinations based on those lectures and texts in the rest of the programme. We consider the IA system crucial to our plan of re-shaping the MA programme to make it more interactive, challenging and meaningful to each student.
Starting last year, the Department of English has introduced a new system of Internal Assessment for its MA Programme, called IA Group Meetings. Each student is a part of a small group (of approximately 17 students), which will meet a designated faculty member once a week in the afternoon of a working day, from around 1.30-‐2.30 pm.
Each IA group meets a particular teacher for 1 semester, and then another teacher in the next semester. Potentially, therefore, each student works closely with 4 faculty members in their IA Groups in the course of the MA Programme.
Structure MA students of both years, Previous and Final, are allotted to IA Groups comprising about 17-‐18 classmates assigned randomly by roll numbers. There will be about 6-‐8 groups in the South Campus and 12-‐14 groups in the North Campus.
Meetings Each IA group will have at least 9 meetings during this semester, August-‐ December 2011. If any meeting is missed because of a university holiday or because the teacher is on leave/unable to make the meeting, then it will be rescheduled. The total number of meetings MUST be 9, and attendance marks are allotted for each meeting.
The IA meetings for Semester I and III shall begin on the 29th of August, 2011. Attendance records shall be kept at all meetings and students shall be expected to take an active part in the discussions and fulfil all requirements that will count towards their final evaluation.
Teachers will have full autonomy in deciding what they would like to discuss in their IA groups, that they believe might enhance the students’ critical skills for reading and writing.
Requirements • 1 oral presentation
• 1 term paper
• Regular and active participation in class discussions
A set of 4 readings shall be circulated by each teacher at the first meeting with a particular IA group. This set shall constitute the readings for the entire semester. The 9 meetings shall be broken up into the following structure:
Meeting 1: Introduction, assignment of readings, allocation of presentation topics and dates.
Meeting 2: Presentation and discussion of reading 1 and related ideas by the teacher.
Meeting 3: Presentations by 3 – 4 students related to reading 1.
Meeting 4: Presentation and discussion of reading 2 and related ideas by the teacher.
Meeting 5: Presentations by 3 – 4 students related to reading 2.
This pattern will be followed through the rest of the semester for Readings 3 and 4.
The Term Paper
All students will be required to submit a term paper of 2,500 words. A leeway of 300 words plus or minus will be permitted. Thus your term paper word limit range will be from 2,200 to 2,800 words and you will have marks deducted if your paper word limit is outside this range. The word limit does not include the bibliography.
The Term Paper should be related to the course, in an area in which the teacher is competent to evaluate, and the topic shall be decided after consultation with the teacher.
The term paper deadline (both hard copy and email submissions) for semesters 1 and 3 is Friday, November 11, 2011 by 4 pm. Hard copies must be submitted to the dept office on your own campus.
Attendance
Attendance at the IA Group Meetings is mandatory and unexplained absences will be penalized. Attendance will be mandatory for all students and will be strictly monitored.
There are separate marks allocated for attendance per group meeting (usually 1 mark per meeting), and this will only be computed on an actual basis. If a student misses up to 2 meetings out of 9, there will be no other penalty but s/he will still get only 7/9 for attendance. If a student misses more than 2 meetings, the penalties will be as follows:
• more than 2 absences will result in losing the 15 marks assigned for class participation,
• more than 5 absences will lose the 25 marks for participation and presentation and
• more than 7 absences will lose the entire 100 marks for Internal Assessment.
If there is a valid reason (usually medical) for more than 2 absences, the student can apply to the Head of the Department with relevant supporting medical documents (a doctor’s certificate PLUS pathological test/x-‐ray results and prescriptions) to be considered being allowed to complete the semester’s IA group requirements and for the additional penalties to be relaxed. However, it must be noted that even in cases in which the reason for absence is accepted by the IA committee after scrutiny of documents submitted, the marks that the student gets for attendance at 9 meetings will be based on his/her presence at the group meetings; i.e., if a student has only attended 4 out of 9 meetings because of some serious health problems and the medical documents are acceptable to the committee, s/he will not lose 25 marks but will still get 4/9 for attendance.
Evaluation
Each of the four courses you do in a semester has the following evaluation scheme:
End Semester Examination : 70 Marks
Internal Assessment : 30 Marks
Out of the 30 Marks for Internal Assessment, (a maximum of) 5 Marks are awarded by the College in which you are registered (based on the tutorials they conduct). The Department is responsible for 25 marks of the Internal Assessment for each paper.
IA Marks
Thus, in every semester, the Department awards 100 Marks (25 x 4) each. The following is break up of 100 Marks:
Term Paper: 75 Marks
Oral Presentation: 10 Marks
Class Participation: 15 Marks
Total: 100 Marks
The 75 Marks for the Term Paper is broken up as follows:
Writing skills: 25 Marks
Research: 25 Marks
Ideas/Argument: 25 Marks
Since the marks for IA pertain to 4 courses, the break-‐up of marks for the 3 components of the Term Paper will be assigned to 3 courses respectively. The Marks of the Oral Presentation and Class Participation will constitute the Marks for the fourth Course.
Allocations of Teachers and Constitution of Groups
The teachers’ list will be drawn up in alphabetical order. IA Groups will then be constituted from student class lists by assigning each successive roll no to the list of teachers, i.e. roll no 1 to teacher no 1, roll no 2 to teacher no 2, and so on. This will avoid clubbing together students from 1 college in a group and also ensure a fair and random spread of student members in a group.
There can be no negotiation regarding the group a student has been allocated. If necessary, we will have to shift students around from their original groups in order to balance the total number of students in each IA group; we shall try to ensure that those being shifted do not go to teachers they have already met for IA in earlier semesters, but other than that, it will be impossible to entertain any individual requests from students regarding group placement.
Concluding Remarks The IA format has been devised in order to enhance student-‐teacher interaction in the MA Programme through which students can learn and contribute to academic processes in ways that a large lecture class does not permit. The IA group meetings format allows for continuous evaluation over a period of 9 weeks. The marking scheme for the term papers is designed to develop skill sets in writing, research, and argumentation that are valuable not only for the MA but for further academic and non-‐academic pursuits. Along with the class presentations the IA scheme is designed to equip students with knowledge and analytical skills that go beyond the examination. Obviously, the success of this system will depend wholly on the commitment of each student in the group to this exercise. At its best, each IA group will have an exciting and fruitful semester together.
Statutory Warning It is mandatory to participate in the Internal Assessment if you do not want to lose the marks that are allocated for Internal Assessment in each course of the MA syllabus.
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